


Under A New Moon

by Dragonfruiteen



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: (Because it's a PRESENT hahaha), Bittersweet, Gen, Making Up, Present Tense, RPH Secret Santa gift exchange, talking things out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:07:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28383699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonfruiteen/pseuds/Dragonfruiteen
Summary: Dream's been living at the castle for a few weeks now. Things are going much better than he expected, but there seems to be nothing he can do to mend the rift between him and Nightmare. And then he finds a door...
Comments: 6
Kudos: 56





	Under A New Moon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OneiriX](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneiriX/gifts).



> Merry Christmas Hells! This came out a little shorter than I was hoping, but I hope you like it nonetheless!

Dream has never ventured this far into the castle before. He's still unsure of his place here and finds it hard to gather the courage to explore much beyond the main living areas. But he knows that this particular area is too far from the central living areas to be often frequented. The library, gym, and kitchen are all in the right wing, and so the bedrooms are there as well for the sake of convenience. As far as Dream knows, the left wing is nothing but empty corridors and dusty windows.

At first glance the door looks just like every other door in this part of the castle. It's made from ancient, well-worn and weathered wood and every little crack and crevice is lined with dust from years of quiet neglect. But there are no cobwebs gathered at the hinges, and the doorknob shines with the tell-tale wear of frequent use. 

The only rooms that are off-limits are the bedrooms, and the kitchen while Horror is trying to work. So with that in mind, Dream is only a little nervous as he turns the knob and pulls open the well-oiled door.

At first glance it looks like just another empty hallway lined with shadows and dust. But the moment Dream steps through he finds himself somewhere else entirely.

"What?" he breathes, shocked, as silver grass tickles his bare feet and the cool night breeze lingers on his bones. He shivers in the sudden chill, and when he exhales he's half surprised that he can't see it hanging in the air.

But it's not so cold he can't bear it, although he does rather wish he'd thought to grab his coat. He only looks back once. He's not at all confident he'll be able to find his way back to this place should he leave, so he decides to explore while he can. The full moon hangs large and low in the star-studded sky, making it easy to pick his way along the narrow barely-there path. 

He's only walking for about a minute before he comes to what is clearly a garden. He stops on top of a little rounded hill next to a large moss-covered stone, and breathes in the scent of dozens of flowers. Even he, as someone who knows only the bare minimum about most plants, can tell that most of these species aren't supposed to bloom at night. They don't seem to care though, and are practically glowing in the pale moonlight. 

Dream finds the path down the hill without thinking. Each step is suddenly so natural and familiar, as though he's walking a path he's walked every day of his life. He falters, confused by the familiarity, and glances back the way he came. From this angle, the hill almost looks like…

He stops. It is. He recognizes the shape of the earth, the paths he thought he'd never seen until today. He lets out a slow, shaky breath. A secret garden- no, more than that. A landscape that Dream still knows by heart despite the many, many years since last he walked it. Did… did Nightmare make this place?

Dream knows without a doubt that he did. The door to the garden is well used despite where it's placed, and the plants are well cared for by the hands- and tentacles- of a skilled gardener. And who else would know so well what their first home looked like? 

He follows the path. It winds and weaves in odd ways, but he knows each step by heart. 

There is a ring of lavender, just like the one they used to lay in to watch the butterflies. Dream has since learned he's allergic to lavender, but they didn't know that then. Nightmare always thought it was funny to blow a puff of pollen in his face and make him sneeze, and although Dream liked to act indignant about it, he thought it was funny too. 

And just beyond the lavender, sheltered by old willows that hang down like a curtain around the shallow banks, lies a pool just the same size and shape of the one they used to bathe in. Dream steps down into the water, just enough to get his feet wet. There's no frogs or fish in this pond, and it's covered with pink and golden water lilies instead of duckweed, but it's still so much the same that he half expects the Nightmare of his childhood to come down from the hill with his shirt wrapped around his waist and a familiar scowl on his face as he complains about the cold. 

Dream steps out of the water and dries his feet on the grass. That's one thing that is different here. The grass is soft and short and such a pale gray-green that it nearly glows here in the dark. It's mixed with clover, red and white flowers scattered across the ground like the stars are scattered across the sky far above. 

A thought strikes him, and he turns down the path without quite meaning to. But it's not long before he stops- the path he remembers doesn't exist here. At first he thinks he's mistaken, but it doesn't take long to confirm the truth. There's no path down to where the village would lay, here in this moonlit memory of the world he used to have. 

Dream goes there anyway. As long as he doesn't think too hard, his feet find the way of their own accord. The grass here is longer and wilder, as though the gardener chooses not to stray this way too often. He begins to wonder if anyone has ever walked here before.

And then he sees the roses. 

The flowers are dark red, almost black, and nearly as large as his hand with the fingers spread wide. The leaves are small and even darker. The thorns-

Dream measures a thorn against his hand. It stretches from his wrist up to the tip of his ring finger, and it's by no means the largest one he can see. Petunias even darker than the roses grow throughout the hedge, winding and weaving along the more slender branches. 

There's no way past the roses. They're more than twice his height, and he can see no break in them to either the left or the right. There's certainly no way to push through the hedge. 

He walks back to the garden. He doesn't go up the hill again. The stone set up at the crest… it feels final. He's not sure he can face it yet. 

There's a wide variety of flowers growing, some in neat flowerbeds and others in seemingly random clumps, but they all share one thing in common. Save for the red clover and the roses down in the hedge, they're all cool colors. White and blue, silver and purple. Some of them have hints of other colors, of pink or yellow or red, but for the most part they're all of the same soft, cool colors.

So when he comes upon a bed filled with brilliant yellow and gold and orange, he's just a little bit surprised. Marigolds and sunflowers stand tall, with cinquefoil and buttercups growing down lower. They grow in an almost perfect circle around a small, smooth gray stone much like the one at the top of the hill. 

He steps onto the stone, careful not to damage the flowers as he does so. He doesn't know what this is supposed to represent, but he knows it represents _something._ Even if the arrangement didn't make it obvious, he feels in his bones that this spot is important. 

"Dream?"

Nightmare's voice is softer than Dream has heard it in a very long time. He turns with a guilty little start, ready to apologize, but… Nightmare doesn't look mad. He's standing there at the base of the hill with his tendrils curling uncertainly at his feet, the dark on his bones glistening in the moonlight. 

Dream steps off the rock. "Nightmare," he says quietly. 

Dream should really be used to the awkward silences between the two of them, but right here, right now, the silent staring feels so painfully out of place. There's no sound to break the quiet, not even a cricket or an owl in the distance. They and their memories are the only ones to occupy this place and fill the silence. 

"How long have you been here?" Nightmare asks, finally. 

Dream half-shrugs. "I'm not sure," he confesses. "Not too long. I left when Horror was putting the casserole in the oven, but it was a while before I found the door that led me here."

Nightmare seems to accept that answer, vague as it is. He looks around the garden as though he's never truly seen it until this moment, and there's something soft and vulnerable in his eye. 

"...I didn't know you garden," Dream says, and it's Nightmare's turn to shrug. 

"Only in here. Sometimes I think I'll start a proper garden somewhere with an actual sun, but I've never quite had time for it." 

Dream glances at the moon. He's not sure if Nightmare is being literal or just dramatic, but he rather hopes it's the former. This place wouldn't be so easy to face in the daylight. 

Nightmare sighs and looks away. "I know you have questions," he says. "Go on, ask. I promise I won't bite."

Dream isn't quite sure he believes that, but he _does_ have questions. He's unsure where to start though, and finally settles with "Why?"

Nightmare shifts a little and his tentacles curl up tighter at his feet. "I didn't want to think about things for a long time," he begins. "I wanted to forget it. Act like all of it never happened, just start over with my life. But try as I might, I couldn't just forget." He glances at Dream from the corner of his eye before he returns to staring up at the stars. 

"So I decided to remember instead. And I did. Every detail, every step." He gestures helplessly at the garden around them, at the hill and the pool and the lavender, and a thousand other little details Dream barely remembers but knows without a doubt are correct.

"It's beautiful," Dream says softly as he risks a few steps closer. "You remember so much more than I do," he adds mournfully. 

"I got an earlier start," Nightmare says to that. "You were trapped in stone. I had a few extra centuries to think about it."

Dream can't help but think that Nightmare deserved those centuries, if he used them to create this place. It almost hurts just to stand there in the center of such a familiar landscape, even if it is so different that no one other than the two of them could ever guess at what it really is. But he's telling the truth when he says it's beautiful, and even though it hurts it's so good just to remember. 

"I know what almost everything is," Dream says slowly, "But I don't know what those are for." He gestures to the patch of blazing gold blooms even as he looks away, ashamed that he forgot something so obviously noteworthy.

Nightmare looks at him long and slow before answering. "That's where you stood when I turned you to stone."

Dream feels cold, but it's not because of the chill in the air. A stone lays on that spot, just like a stone lays where a tree that never existed here used to grow. "How long has it been here?" he asks, barely above a whisper.

"They were some of the first flowers I planted," Nightmare answers. He knows what Dream's thinking, must see something of it in his eyes. "I mourned you," he says lowly. "When I was aware enough to think you were truly gone. I grieved for you, Dream. And when you came back I celebrated, even after I knew what it meant."

Their gazes meet, gold against cyan. If Nightmare expects an answer he'll be disappointed, because Dream doesn't know what to say. 

He swallows, and when he does finally find his voice, it's hoarse and quiet. "And the roses?"

"Do you really need to ask?"

Nightmare turns and starts walking up the hill. Dream follows. If he closes his eyes he knows it would be so easy to slip into fantasy, to let his feet take him up the familiar path and pretend it's the same world he knew so many years ago.

He doesn't. His eyes stay open and he watches Nightmare's tendrils sway slowly back and forth as they walk along the path, a constantly-shifting reminder that this is now.

When they reach the top each sits down with their back pressed against the stone. Their hands are so close they're almost touching, and Dream can feel the low thrum of Nightmare's soul pulsing- although his own pounds so loud that it's a wonder he can hear himself think. 

Nightmare is the one to break the silence. 

"Do you remember when we would lay in the field and watch the swallows chase each other?" he asks. 

"I do," Dream says softly. After a moment he adds, tentative, "Do you remember when we raced along the river banks, and whoever crossed the tree first got to push the other in?"

Nightmare chuckles. "I remember having to fish you out when you slipped and fell into the deep part."

Dream laughs a little too at that particular memory. Sitting there by the stone, looking out at the echo of a landscape he used to know by heart, it all feels like it happened yesterday. 

"I remember when I went down to the village alone for the first time," Nightmare says, and Dream tenses.

"I had no idea how they felt about me then. I didn't know they hated me, and I wouldn't have understood why. That came later." He laughs, slow and dry and bitter. "I understand perfectly now. But I didn't then, and that was almost worse than the bruises."

Dream waits for him to say more, but he doesn't. Nightmare sits there beside him, head tilted back and staring blankly upwards. Dream raises his head as well, looks up at stars that he's never seen the likes of anywhere else. 

"They weren't kind to me," Dream says finally, quietly. He feels how Nightmare shifts beside him, can feel how he's staring. "They weren't _un_ kind, certainly not… certainly not like they were to you. And I didn't realize it at the time. But now I know better." His gaze drops down to his feet. "I know a lot more now than I used to."

It's a long time before Nightmare speaks, and Dream is starting to be afraid that he messed up and said the wrong thing. But finally Nightmare sighs. "We both know better now," is all he says, but that's all he needs to say. Their eyes meet, and Dream knows he's been forgiven for his ignorance so many years ago. 

He offers his hand and Nightmare takes it with only the briefest moment of hesitation. It's been a very, very long time since they've held hands, but it's still the most natural thing in the world for Dream to give a little squeeze, and for Nightmare to lift Dream's hand and kiss it gently like they're still children playing at knights and princes.

"I'd like to come back here," Dream says almost shyly, "If that's okay with you?"

Nightmare looks down the hill and out over the silent landscape. It's obvious in the way he hesitates and bites his lip that he's reluctant to say yes. This is his space, and as much as Dream feels like it should be his space too, he has to remind himself that _Nightmare_ made this place the way it is. He never intended for Dream to find it, and if he doesn't want him to return, then… Dream will respect that, even if it hurts.

"Maybe," Nightmare says finally, and that's the best answer Dream could have hoped for. 

They sit together for another few minutes in silence before Dream lets out a little huff. "We should probably get back," he says. "They might come looking for us."

Nightmare scoffs. "They wouldn't know where to look." But he still stands and pulls Dream up with him. 

They walk down the hill side by side and hand in hand, just like they used to do so many years ago. 

Bonus!

"You guys get lost?" Killer asks from where he's sprawled across the floor. "I was wondering if I should send a search party." 

"Just exploring," Dream answers. "This place is a little big. Guess I kinda did get lost, mweh heh. I'm lucky Nightmare knows his way around, huh?"

Killer chuckles. "Heh, yeah. It's pretty big- oof!"

"Oops," Horror says, and removes his foot from Killer's sternum. "Didn't see ya there. Mebbe ya shouldn't be laying in the walkway." 

Killer groans and flips him off before dragging himself off to collapse dramatically in the corner. Nightmare rolls his eyes at the two idiots and stalks off, leaving Dream to watch him go. 

There's a sound that isn't _quite_ an explosion in the kitchen, and Cross stumbles through the doorway coughing and waving away smoke. "A little help?" he croaks.

Dream and Horror exchange a look before rushing to get some water before the kitchen catches fire, again.


End file.
